Skyrim will have infinite quests, director says

If you like getting bang for your buck, The Elder
Scrolls V: Skyrim will give you a nuclear blast.

You'll never have to stop questing in the upcoming open-world
role-playing game, to be released 11 November for Xbox 360, PC
and PlayStation 3. Skyrim director Todd Howard
told Wired.com in a phone interview Monday that the game will
feature a never-ending stream of procedurally generated content,
giving players an infinite number of things to do.

"The vibe of the game is that it's something that you can play
forever," Howard said.

The game's Radiant
quest system randomly generates new tasks based on your
progress in the game. An innkeeper might ask you to hunt for
bandits in a place you haven't found yet, or an aspiring alchemist
could request that you collect 10 undiscovered flowers for his
work. Howard claims that the options are endless.

In addition to these minor tasks, Howard says you'll be able to
do extra work for each of the game's factions, like the Dark
Brotherhood and the Thieves Guild. Once you complete the
scripted quest lines for each group, you can go to their respective
hubs and pick up randomly generated missions to steal gems or
assassinate shopkeepers across Skyrim's massive world.

Though some players might not love the idea of endlessly
collecting groups of random ingredients, Howard says that Radiant
quests play into one of the game's major strengths: environmental
storytelling. Skyrim's world is sprinkled with
secrets and minor bits of narrative that you'll have to piece
together as you explore, an aspect of game design that Howard says
the team picked up while working on their last game, Fallout 3.

"With Fallout, it's not as beautiful a world to
everybody," he said. "We had to find ways to make exploration of [a
destroyed wasteland] interesting."

For Skyrim, Howard says that Bethesda has learned
a few new tricks and gotten better at the old ones. The most
enjoyable part of the Radiant system won't be completing quests, he
says, it'll be the things you discover along the way:
bandit-infested fortresses, or a terrifying lighthouse.

"The world is probably the one thing that sets [Skyrim]
apart from other games," he said. "It feels really real for what it
is… It's just fun to explore."